Yes, democracy died on a Tuesday. Not a single shot was fired, no bombs were dropped, and no prisoners were taken. It happened last week when Sen. Charles Grassley called the Senate Judiciary Committee to order. They were there to debate the appointment of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh to the bench. Even though the Republicans had enough votes to confirm Kavanaugh, they wanted to make sure nothing controversial came out in the proceedings by releasing only documents they knew were benign.

They also dumped 46,000 pages of documents on the Democrats the night before the session. Less than 10 percent of the documents requested by the Democrats were provided. The gatekeeper for the documents that pertained to Kavanaugh’s time in the Bush White House is a lawyer who is representing three of President Trump’s staff members in the Mueller investigation. When Democrats asked for some time to read all the new documents they were given the night before, they were told “no” by Grassley.

In fact, he said the Republicans read them in the time given. That is over 700 pages an hour — talk about speed-reading. This nominee is there for three reasons only. He finds for big business in over 70 percent of his cases. He wants to overturn Roe v. Wade. And finally, he does not believe a president should be subject to any criminal investigations or charges while in office.

Kavanaugh’s name was added to the president’s list of nominees only after Mueller’s Russian election probe started. Democracy has been hijacked by the Republican Party, and all of us are along for the ride. This is another example of how important it is to vote. If Democrats had done their civic duty, this entire nightmare would not have happened.